HONG KONG: The #StandTogether National Kindness Week campaign by SP Setia and R.AGE was honoured with a gold award at the Digital Media Asia summit.

Some of the continent’s largest media companies gathered here for the summit and awards ceremony, which honoured the best in digital news content and campaigns.

The campaign, which successfully created kindness movements in schools across Malaysia in an effort to combat bullying, won the top prize in the Branded Content category.

“This is a great example of how media companies can work with socially conscious brands and stakeholders to create positive impact at a national level,” said R.AGE deputy executive editor and producer Ian Yee.

“We really have to thank SP Setia for believing in the campaign, which we really believe will create a kinder, more positive environment for schoolchildren in the decades to come.”

SP Setia and R.AGE collaborated to launch the #StandTogether campaign in November 2017 in response to a spate of deadly bullying cases and increase in cyberbullying among children.

The goal of the campaign was to encourage schools to observe an annual National Kindness Week on the first week of April, starting this year.

The campaign managed to get around 750 schools registered in the first year alone, and sparked over 130 student-led kindness project ideas.

Several key stakeholders and partners also supported the campaign, including Unicef Malaysia, Digi, Petrosains, Study Hub Asia, 100% Project and Teach For Malaysia.

Among others, the partners helped develop a complete Kindness Week curriculum, which was made free for all teachers to download.

Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik recently declared his support for the campaign, particularly a National Kindness Week in April 2019.

This year, R.AGE, SP Setia and other campaign partners hope the Kindness Week programme can be executed in all schools across the country, and include other countries in their “Kindness Revolution” as well.

“We believe this is something schools across the world can benefit from.

"Like (Prime Minister) Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said recently – schools must focus not only on teaching knowledge, but good character and values as well,” added Yee.